1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to printing apparatuses and methods of controlling the same, and information processing apparatuses.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional ring binding apparatuses, which punch holes in printed material using a puncher and then bind that printed material together using wire-shaped rings, are known.
FIGS. 2A and 2B are diagrams illustrating examples of rings used in ring binding.
Rings 201 are what are known as double-loop rings, and are created by bending a single wire back upon itself. As shown in FIG. 2A, prior to binding, the rings 201 are in a C-shape. By applying pressure to these C-shaped rings and closing the rings, the wire deforms in the manner shown in FIG. 2B; the rings become circles as a result, and prevent paper or the like from coming loose.
In ring binding, a binding position 202 is created when carrying out the aforementioned crimp binding. The binding position 202 has a poor appearance, and because areas where the wire has been cut appear at the upper and lower ends thereof, this position has a poor feel as well. Generally speaking, when ring binding is carried out by hand, the binding is performed so that the binding position is hidden immediately in front of the back cover or immediately behind the front cover, so that the binding position does not appear at the rear of the bound material.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-039852, for example, discloses a technique for a configuration in which a cover sheet large enough to enclose the inner sheets (that is, the body of the volume) is folded and holes are punched at the fold in order to hide the binding position, so that the binding position does not appear at the rear of the bound material.
FIGS. 3A and 3B are schematic diagrams illustrating an example of a ring binding process.
In order to hide the binding position 202, the back cover 303 and the front cover 304 are placed over inner sheets 302, as shown in FIG. 3A, and holes are punched therethrough; the rings 201 are passed through the holes that have been punched, and are then closed by compressing the rings 201 from above and below. Then, as shown in FIG. 3B, the front cover 304 is rotated along the rings 201, which makes it possible to obtain a bound material in which the binding position 202 has been hidden.
In-line type ring binding apparatuses that carry out this type of ring binding on sheets that have been printed and transported by a printing apparatus have been considered in recent years.
However, carrying out ring binding using an in-line type ring binding apparatus presents the following problems.
FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating conventional received page description language (PDL) data and a conventional page layout used for binding.
Generally speaking, page description language (PDL) data 400 received by a printing apparatus is sorted in order from the first page to an Nth page, including a cover sheet. In the case where, upon receiving such PDL data, the printing apparatus is to carry out double-sided printing, that printing apparatus prints, in order, a front cover (front and back) 401, inner sheets (front and back) 402, and a back cover (front and back) 403. When binding using staples, bound material having the correct order can be obtained by printing the sheets in this order, stacking the printed sheets, and stapling the sheets together.
However, when using an in-line type ring binding apparatus, if the sheets that have been printed in the order starting with the front cover (front and back) 401, the inner sheets (front and back) 402, and the back cover (front and back) 403 are stacked in that order and bound as-is, the binding cannot be carried out so that the binding position 202 appears at the rear.
In addition, as described with reference to FIG. 3B, if binding is to be carried out so that the binding position is hidden, it is necessary to create the data so that the data of the cover sheet is previous to or following the data of the inner sheets in advance when creating the print data. Furthermore, such print data, in which the data of the cover sheet is previous to or following the data of the inner sheets, cannot be used in staple binding, and it is thus necessary for a user to expressly change the position of the cover sheet depending on whether he or she will carry out ring binding or staple binding.